The art bug bit when…
I was 15. I had been dead set on becoming a veterinarian but changed tracks after taking a mandatory semester of art. I loved both the studio practice and the history of art. I couldn’t get enough.

My very first art love…
Probably Rauschenberg. I grew up in Buffalo and my parents would often take me to the Albright-Knox Museum, which has an excellent Abstract Expressionist and post-AbEx collection. I think it was the colors and the brush strokes full of raw energy that attracted me to the giant Rauschenberg combine painting. I wanted to do that too.

My signature style…
Has been called Andy Warhol meets Helen Frankenthaler. I stain my canvases so that the colors bleed, drip and collide but my references are very pop culture. People often say they can see my sense of humor in my work.

And how I came to them…
In 2006 I became obsessed with painting hippies — in particular, a long haired, bearded, aviator-wearing hippie head. I started to use unprimed canvas so that the paint would have a tie-dyed feel. I’ve stayed with staining canvases because of the risk and chance it involves. Mistakes must be worked with rather than corrected and though I’m very good at controlling the bleeds, I still never exactly know what the paint will do as it’s blending with other colors. I’m excited every time to see what the results will be.